For our second exercise, we grapple with the concept of cruelty, en façon d’Artaud. Our mission: to assault the audience, uncover the subconscious—theirs? ours? we are both—and avoid the bourgeois.

First confession. I find the bourgeois strangely alluring. Hey ho.

This time around, we appear in our own scenes, and I screw up royally—words and intention hammered by my ham-fisted handling of stage business undertaken with script in hand—

Second confession. I could have learned my lines—my lines—and avoided some of this embarrassment, not least the part where my aging eyes fail to focus. Off the book is on the ball.

My scene is not the worst thing I’ve ever written. The intention, at least, feels right. Cliché to combat the bourgeois; an emphasis on the visual; an attempt to shock—could I turn this into a series of interlocking scenes with different combinations of characters?

Daniel, playing HE to my SHE, proves again that he’s a man who can act.

Josie wins the night with a brilliant piece combining her talents for both page and stage. She’s on this. Everyone is doing interesting work—

Third confession. I long for a chance to perform again, to redeem myself—and yet, again, I am not cast. I get it, I do—and consciously, I am fine with my featured role. But subconsciously? For sure, I don’t want to be pitied or pandered to. I just want to be both them and us—

Or could it be that, by screwing up, I turned an okay scene into the biggest assault of the night?